


Sharing the Duty

by lowbudgetcyborg



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Baby Fic, F/M, Family Feels, Female Bilbo, Kink Meme, Pregnancy, Rule 63, kink meme fill, our dwarves are different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:29:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowbudgetcyborg/pseuds/lowbudgetcyborg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which dwarf men have functional breasts, and no one told Bella Baggins about this until her pregnancy was nearly over. Also Everybody Lives, Bella wants her kid to be born already, there is sister-in-law bonding with Dis, Thorin is already a pro at baby care, and everyone in the Durin family falls in love with the new baby dwobbit. </p><p>Originally written for <a href="http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/5821.html?thread=13704125#t14251965">this prompt</a> on the Hobbit kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing the Duty

Bella sighed as Ori slipped out of the sitting room with an apologetic wave. At least he left a nice, tall stack of books to keep her occupied. That is, if she could concentrate enough to read them. No sooner had the door closed behind Ori than it opened for Dis, who sat down at her tablet weaving. Dis began to hum a pleasant background tune as she turned the tablet and passed the shuttle back and forth, creating a brightly patterned band, twist by twist. 

Bella had thought she was a patient person, before she got to know Dis. 

Of course, Bella thought, she was entitled to a certain amount of impatience. She had already been pregnant at _least_ two weeks longer than a hobbit should be, and if the baby was on a purely dwarven time-line there were still months left to go! She sighed again, squirming a little to try and find a comfortable position to read in. 

Dis looked up. “Do you want a foot rub?”

Bella nodded and leaned back against the many cushions on her couch. Dis sat on one of the foot-stools and began working on Bella's feet and ankles. She was very good at it.

“How could you stand to do this twice?” Bella groaned.

Dis smiled sympathetically. “I have more torso to carry a baby in than you, dear brother's wife.” She playfully pinched Bella's big toe and Bella smiled back.

“I am more than ready for this pregnancy to be over. I do nothing but eat and use the privy! It's ridiculous!” She waved a finger in the air, as if admonishing the universe. 

“You'll have to wait until the _baby_ is ready. And Thorin's breasts haven't started growing yet, so it will probably be...”

“Wait,” Bella propped herself up on her elbow, staring at Dis over her belly. “ _Thorin's_ breasts?!”

Dis stared right back at Bella for a long moment. “Do hobbit fathers _not_ help nurse their infants?” She spoke slowly, as if testing out a new and strange idea.

“You mean dwarf men can nurse? Thorin never mentioned it!”

Dis rolled her eyes. “What is it you two talk about, if not these practical considerations?”

Bella shrugged, too gobsmacked to come up with a response.

At that moment the door opened to admit Thorin, who raised his eyebrows at the impromptu staring contest between Bella and Dis. Dis stood up and faced him with her hands on her hips.

“Thorin, did you know that hobbit fathers can't nurse their children?”

“What?” His tone was surprised, with just a bit of... was that pity? He looked at Bella. “You're expecting to do it all yourself?”

Bella had managed to sit up amongst her cushions, the better to glare at him, and she threw her hands in the air in a gesture of frustration. “Well, now I don't know _what_ to expect! It seems that whenever I come to grips with the differences between dwarf ways and hobbit ways something even stranger comes up!”

Thorin sat on the vacated foot-stool and pulled her feet into his lap. “I assumed that you and I would share the duties of nursing our child. That is the way it is done in most dwarf families... and I have been looking forward to it.” He gently ran his fingers through the curls on the tops of her feet. “I'm sorry I didn't think to mention it when we were talking to Oin about the differences between hobbit and dwarf pregnancies.” 

Bella let herself relax under his caresses. “You're forgiven, as long as you tell me more about how nursing works with dwarves, and how dwarf parents usually divide up their jobs. I don't want to be caught off guard like that again!”

Dis took that as her cue to leave, and Bella smiled. Dis stood steadfast by her brother in public or government matters, but her policy regarding his private life was always “You dug the tunnel, you find your way out of it.”

“Ah... well... when a baby is born...” Thorin stopped and frowned for a moment, reorganizing his thoughts. “You have noticed that there is less difference between dwarf men and women than between human men and women, or between hobbit men and women...”

Bella nodded. She still had great difficulty picking out dwarven women from men, unless they chose to wear human-influenced “female” fashions.

“Dwarf women don't... get breasts... as part of growing into adults,” he continued haltingly. “Instead, when a dwarf woman is pregnant her breasts will grow as the birth of her baby nears. And other adult dwarves in the same household will grow breasts as well. Then when they are no longer nursing their breasts will shrink again.”

Bella traced the knotwork band on the edge of Thorin's tunic as she digested the new information. “Is it usual for all the adults in the household to nurse a baby?” Their household included Fili and Kili as well as Dis and her husband Vili. She had even more trouble trying to picture the princes nursing a baby than trying to picture Thorin doing so. 

“It depends on the family. Everyone will take a turn with a newborn, for luck, but who does the day to day feeding depends on what kinds of crafts and lives the dwarves have.” He looked down at her feet, then back up to meet her eyes. His expression was carefully neutral, but she could see the concern in the set of his shoulders and hands. “Would it bother you to have so many people taking care of our child?”

She took a moment to examine her feelings. “I can't say that having more research time than I expected will be unwelcome, but I was so close to my mother. I was looking forward to having that same closeness with our child. I never had to share my mother with anyone but my father. I'm not sure how well I will do do with sharing the baby.” 

“You don't have to decide right now. Not knowing is fine.” Thorin's mouth curled in a half-smile. “As a matter of fact, my first expectations about how much I would like infant care-giving were _almost_ as wrong as my first assumptions about you. Before Fili was born I was certain that I had no desire to spend that much time sitting quietly or cede control of my body to an infant's cries... but the weeks when I was able to regularly nurse Fili ended up being very precious to me. Dis took great enjoyment in pointing out the shortfalls in my self-knowledge, though she only did so once or twice.”

“I had been thinking that parenting was something we could learn together.” Bella tried not to frown, and mostly succeeded. “I suppose it's a good thing that one of us has experience.”

Thorin squeezed her feet gently. “I think there will still be much for us to learn together.”

_-_-_

About a week after Bella's remarkable, and belated, lesson in dwarven parenting practices Thorin reported tenderness and swelling in his chest. He and Dis explained that this was a sure sign that the baby would arrive within a fortnight. From then on it seemed that Thorin was always within shouting distance, though he was careful to not hover obnoxiously. Fili, Kili, and Dis took up most of his duties that couldn’t be discharged from his desk in his personal study. This did not go unnoticed and Bella's friends from the Company all made a point to stop by for a brief visit. They brought small meals, gossip, and songs. Bella appreciated how well they broke up the maddening sense of anticipation. 

True to dwarven folk wisdom Bella felt the first pains on the morning of the twelfth day after Thorin and Dis started the countdown. She woke Thorin with the news and he held her for a few minutes before going to tell the rest of the family. As the day went on Bella found herself clinging to Dis (metaphorically and, occasionally, literally) as a substitute for the mother who was beyond her reach and the sister she never had. Bella didn't know (and at that moment didn't particularly care) if it was still night or early morning on the thirteenth day when she finally brought her child into the world and heard it's first cries. 

Oin cut the umbilical cord, then washed and examined the baby before declaring it “A fine healthy child for the Line of Durin and the Baggins Family,” and handing it carefully to Thorin. 

Thorin laid the baby across Bella's chest. As she drank in her first sight of her child, her son, she was bewildered by the knowledge that the months of waiting were over. She laughed and cried at once as she counted fingers and toes. “He's perfect, Thorin! He's perfect!”

“Aye,” Thorin's voice was thick with emotion. He touched his forehead to Bella's. “He is perfect.”

The baby fell asleep quickly after being diapered and swaddled, and Bella fell asleep soon after. It had been a long and tiring day for both of them. 

She woke to the baby making an insistent mewling noise that seemed to be building to a real cry before Thorin picked him up out of his cradle and carried him to her. “Do you think he's hungry?” she asked, pushing her hair out of her face and blinking sleepily. 

“I expect so,” Thorin answered as she sat up carefully, still tired and sore. “You both slept through breakfast. They should be sending up second breakfast any moment.” She opened the front of her nightgown and Thorin put the baby in her arms, gently guiding her to the right position. 

The baby latched on quickly, easing an apprehension Bella hadn't realized she was feeling. When the breakfast tray arrived Thorin fed Bella bits of buttered roll until the baby drank his fill and fell asleep again. Thorin picked him up and rocked him, singing quietly while Bella finished her meal. 

“Do you still like the name you chose?” he asked once she was done. 

Early in the pregnancy they had decided to give the baby a secret name, in accordance with dwarven custom, and a public name that would combine dwarf and hobbit traditions. The secret name was never finalized before the baby was born, but Bella had known for months what she wanted her son's (mostly) hobbit name to be. 

“Oh yes.” She gently touched her fingertips to the baby's chest, feeling it move with his tiny breaths. “You are definitely Hilgo Baggins, son of Thorin, son of Thrain, Prince Under the Mountain.”

“Hilgo,” Thorin echoed her. It sounded even sweeter coming from his lips. “Do you want to hold him or should I put him back to bed?”

“Put him back to bed, I'm going to sleep more as well.” She adjusted her pillows and eased back down under the blankets while Thorin settled Hilgo back into his cradle. “Wake me for elevenses.” 

Thorin tucked the blankets around her shoulders and kissed her briefly. “I am going to let you sleep, but I will make sure they send up something that will keep for a while.”

She did in fact sleep through elevenses and almost to lunch, then the rest of the day was occupied with remembering the infant-care skills she hadn't practiced since her cousins were tiny and composing a birth announcement and letters to send to the Shire. Fili, Kili, Dis, and Vili all took turns holding the baby and singing or cooing at him. Vili was the most natural at it, though Dis was clearly well-practiced. Fili was awkward, but earnest, love written all over his face. 

Kili was the real surprise: he held Hilgo as if he had done so a million times before, and immediately began humming the same song Thorin had sang earlier. The always-active young dwarf was amazingly still and steady. Bella thought that this might be the most relaxed she had seen him since Erebor was re-taken. Dis and Vili shared a smile at the sight of their son and nephew. “Where did the last eighty years go?” Vili asked with a hint of happy tears in his voice. Dis laughed and put her arms around him. 

Dis herded her husband and sons out after supper, and Bella and Thorin went to bed early. The next day would bring the official birth announcement (as if the whole mountain didn't already know), and Hilgo's first brief public appearance, then a baby welcoming party for their extended family (which included everyone in the Company, since they were the closest thing Bella had to extended family within a week's journey). Thorin fell asleep almost immediately, but Bella lay awake for a long while, her mind crowded with thoughts of the coming day. Eventually Thorin's quiet, familiar snores lulled her to sleep. 

Bella heard crying and struggled towards wakefulness. By the time her eyes were opened and focused the crying had stopped and was replaced by Thorin's low voice. “There you are, my gem, my baby. Spend some nice, quiet time with Papa; everyone is going to want to see your beautiful blue eyes tomorrow.” Thorin sat in an armchair with Hilgo cradled against his chest and gazed down at the baby with a smile that was positively love-drunk. 

“Do you need me to...” ... _feed him_ , she started to say, but broke off when she noticed that Hilgo was making faint (adorable, precious, captivating) sucking and gulping sounds. She sat up and took a long moment to just look at Thorin and their son. Thorin had only put on a dressing gown. She could see his almost-naked feet and his strong, muscular calves below the hem. The top was open, showing his hairy belly and chest with the small but unmistakable breasts he now had. The strangeness of it was almost overwhelming. This was nothing like what she had been taught to expect or desire, and yet she couldn't, in that moment, imagine anything more right. 

Thorin was looking at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence. “You look beautiful like that,” she blurted out in surprise. 

“I have been thinking the same thing about you all day.”

She slipped out of bed and padded over to him. She leaned against his shoulder and raised her hand hesitantly, not quite touching his unoccupied breast. 

“This is strange to you,” Thorin observed. “You can touch, if you would like to.”

“It is strange, but not bad.” His breast was soft and yielding as she would expect a breast to be, and his chest hair felt the same as it always had under her fingers. “Not much stranger than everything else. I'm sure I will be used to it by the time the voice in my head stops shouting that we are really parents now.”

Thorin laughed into her hair. “I know exactly what you mean.”

She reached out to stroke one of Hilgo's tiny feet. They were covered by booties now, but they already had wisps of brown hair to go with the patch of fluff on his head. 

“He does have your feet, and your ears.” Thorin said as he adjusted his hold on Hilgo, switching him to the other breast. Bella pulled Hilgo's little knitted hat more securely over his adorable, slightly-pointy ears.

“He's half hobbit, he should have hobbit feet. I think his ears are a mix though.”

Thorin made a non-committal sound and they both grew quiet, Thorin watching Hilgo and Bella watching Thorin with Hilgo. She was struck by the thought that Hilgo's body would grow from the milk they fed him with their own bodies. She felt a profound sense of connection to both Hilgo and Thorin. Wherever Hilgo went, whatever his own adventures were, he would carry part of them with him. It was dwarven tradition for all family members who were able to do so to take a turn at nursing the baby during the baby welcoming party tomorrow. Hilgo would carry part of all of them. It was very different from the way hobbits did things, but Bella thought she might prefer the dwarven way this time.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't come up with the names for fem!Bilbo or Dis' husband. I think I've seen "Bella" used a few times in fanfic, and I got "Vili" from madame_faust's stories. I did come up with "Hilgo" by combining common sounds from Took and Baggins male first names.


End file.
